The New York Times, October 4, 2010

Task 2. Answer the questions.

1. What type of editorial is the article above?

2. What are the editorial characteristics? Identify a sentence highlighting each feature.

3. How does the author try to make her point?

Task 3. Find special terms that you came across in the article above: idioms, phrasal verbs and colloquial words. Write them down.

Task 4. Read the article below, and say what genre it is.

Clean and Open American Elections

For at least 44 years, it has been illegal for foreign corporations, countries and individuals to make political contributions in the United States for any election, either directly or indirectly. It is even against the law to solicit such contributions. But in this Wild West year of political money, that longstanding ban is being set aside. The United States Chamber of Commerce – one of the biggest advertisers in midterm races around the country – is actively soliciting foreign money, and government enforcers seem to be doing nothing to stop it.

According to a report issued by the Center for American Progress, a liberal policy group in Washington, the chamber is getting “dues” payments of tens of thousands of dollars from foreign companies in countries such as Bahrain, India and Egypt, and then mingling the money with its fund to advocate for or against candidates in the midterm races.

The chamber firmly denies the charge, saying its internal accounting rules prevent any foreign money from being used for political purposes. Money, however, is fungible, and it is impossible for an outsider to know whether the group is following its rules.

The chamber has vowed to spend more than $75 million before the November election, and it has already run 8,000 ads, most of which support Republican candidates. The ads do not urge a vote for or against a specific candidate.

Because the United States Chamber is organized as a business league under the federal tax code, it does not have to disclose its donors, so the full extent of foreign influence on its political agenda is unknown. But Tuesday’s report sheds light on how it raises money abroad. Its affiliate in Abu Dhabi, for example, the American Chamber of Commerce, says it has more than 450 corporate and individual members in the United Arab Emirates who pay as much as $8,500 a year to join.

Because of a series of court decisions that culminated in the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling earlier this year, these and similar nonprofits have become huge players in the year’s election, using unlimited money from donors who have no fear of disclosure.

The possible commingling of secret foreign money into these groups raises fresh questions about whether they are violating both the letter and spirit of the campaign finance laws. The Federal Election Commission, which has been rendered toothless by its Republican members, should be investigating possible outright violations of the Federal Election Campaign Act by foreign companies and the chamber.

The Internal Revenue Service, which is supposed to ensure that these nonprofit groups are not primarily political, has fallen down on the job. Last week, Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, demanded that the I.R.S. look into whether the tax code was being misused for political purposes, and, on Tuesday, two watchdog groups made the same request of the agency.

The government needs to make sure that the tax code – and American control of American elections – is not being violated.

The New York Times, October 5, 2010

Task 5. What is the structure of the text above? What are its constituent parts.

Task 6. Read the article above for the second time, find the sentences that may be regarded as the author’s arguments. Do they sound convincing to you? How informative are they?

Task 7. Why are some word combinations in the material above are italicised?

Task 8. Watch Video 7 (Folder Unit 6), transcribe news presenter’s commentary to each paper being reviewed and translate it into Russian.

Task 9. Read the article below, determine its genre.